BOUND FOR THE PROMISED LAND: HARRIET TUBMAN, PORTRAIT OF AN AMERICAN HERO, by Kate Clifford Larson (One World Books, Random House, NY:2004), pp. 52-53
“We cannot be sure where Tubman acquired her spiritual inspiration or how she came to know scripture by heart.We can assumed she experienced a spiritual awakening sometime during her adolescent years, perhaps as a natural progression of teachings heard at white Methodist services, camp meetings, at clandestine services in the woods, at Scott's Chapel in Bucktown, or in the slave quarters. Religious expression was a very personal experience for Tubman. When invited to join in prayers with a white master's family, “she preferred to stay on the landing, and pray for herself.” Praying for stength to make her “able to fight,” Tubman's pleadings became her own private rebellion. Later Tubman would come to believe that her repeated attempts to retrieve enslaved blacks from the South were a holy crusade and that her God was the same God that so moved [Zilpha] Elaw, [Jarena] Lee, and [Maria] Stewart.
“The influence of this fusion of African cultural and spiritual ideology and evangelical Protestantism, particularly in female voices, on Tubman's life has been lost in the retelling of her narrative. At the same time, it is also the nation's inflexible secularism that contributes to a devaluing and misinterpretation of the importance of religion and its defining influence in African American life. Harriet Tubman's courage and “utter disregard of consequences” elevated her to the status of Moses. William Still characterized Tubman as “wholly devoid of fear” and placed her within a long tradition of resistance, a tradition that may help explain at least part of her view of the world. While her spirituality is a staple of her iconography, it is these intricate patterns of influence, from West African belief systems to the specific messages of evangelical women, that reveal the depth of Tubman's psychological and spiritual power.”
“We cannot be sure where Tubman acquired her spiritual inspiration or how she came to know scripture by heart.We can assumed she experienced a spiritual awakening sometime during her adolescent years, perhaps as a natural progression of teachings heard at white Methodist services, camp meetings, at clandestine services in the woods, at Scott's Chapel in Bucktown, or in the slave quarters. Religious expression was a very personal experience for Tubman. When invited to join in prayers with a white master's family, “she preferred to stay on the landing, and pray for herself.” Praying for stength to make her “able to fight,” Tubman's pleadings became her own private rebellion. Later Tubman would come to believe that her repeated attempts to retrieve enslaved blacks from the South were a holy crusade and that her God was the same God that so moved [Zilpha] Elaw, [Jarena] Lee, and [Maria] Stewart.
“The influence of this fusion of African cultural and spiritual ideology and evangelical Protestantism, particularly in female voices, on Tubman's life has been lost in the retelling of her narrative. At the same time, it is also the nation's inflexible secularism that contributes to a devaluing and misinterpretation of the importance of religion and its defining influence in African American life. Harriet Tubman's courage and “utter disregard of consequences” elevated her to the status of Moses. William Still characterized Tubman as “wholly devoid of fear” and placed her within a long tradition of resistance, a tradition that may help explain at least part of her view of the world. While her spirituality is a staple of her iconography, it is these intricate patterns of influence, from West African belief systems to the specific messages of evangelical women, that reveal the depth of Tubman's psychological and spiritual power.”
